What can we do in the face of terror? -- "Do not stand idly by..." (From Parshat Kedoshim)

Kedoshim 2013/5773

To not stand idly by

Rabbi Neil A. Tow©

As we paid tribute on Yom Ha’Shoah to the victims of Nazi terror, we focused on this year as the 70^th Anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising – a battle that was lost before it started, doomed to fail due to overwhelming enemy forces and lack of support and supplies from outside the ghetto.

The uprising began 70 years ago, today, April 19, 1943.

Nothing is left of the Ghetto – walking in the ghetto area we see apartments, green lawns, roads, and memorials – and a soon to be opened museum of Polish Jewry.

And as our recent Eastern Europe trip drew to a close, news of an attack on innocent bystanders, fans of the Boston marathon, people who, like me, stood on the sidelines cheering at the finish, helping in a small way to get people toward the finish line.  People like Krystle Campbell, 29, 8 year old Martin Richard, graduate student Lingzi Lu whose lives ended at that finish line.

“Lo ta’amod al dam re’echa,” our parsha teaches, “Do not stand idly by the blood of your neighbor.”

If we know we can save someone, we should, but what if we do not know the danger?  What if we are as surprised as everyone else?  What then?  Is there a way to not ‘Stand idly by’, a way to be active after the fact?  Can we fulfill God’s expectation of us even as the blood of our fellow human beings stains the sidewalks on Boylston Street, or a Jerusalem street, or a village in Syria, or anywhere else?

We think to ourselves, I am not an FBI agent, I cannot assist with the investigation.

I am not CIA or NSA, I cannot help clarify intelligence reports.

I am not a first responder, I could not be there to bind wounds.

I do not live in Boston.

Can we be active in the debates and planning around issues of gun violence and other violence in our area?

Yes.

Can we offer material, spiritual, and moral support to our brothers and sisters in Israel who live in range of rocket fire?

Yes.

Can we muster the courage to step in when we see bullying occurring between adults and kids?

Yes.

Can we offer our prayers for the victims of violence and spread messages that there are non-violent ways to resolve conflict?

Yes.

We should honor though, at the same time, our ‘would have feelings’, the sense that we could not offer assistance in the moment even if we wanted to do so, perhaps even if we had been there – after all, we could have become victims ourselves no matter how good our intentions or skills.

Jewish thinking gives us language and action points in this situation.  Missing an opportunity for a mitzvah, for example, is much different than an intentional avoidance of doing a mitzvah.  If ancient Jews could not offer the Passover sacrifice on time, there was a Second Passover opportunity one month later.  If we miss offering the Morning prayer, we can ‘make it up’ later on – there’s even the text of an Amidah called ‘Havinenu’ designed to be recited in moments of duress when we cannot do a full version.  Teshuvah is a continual process of self-reflection and a road to reconciliation that opens the chance for each of us to make right what went wrong between us and God, and between people.

Action after the fact may feel too late, ‘token’, or just as something that makes us ‘feel better’. 

I believe though that the people centered wisdom of Jewish generations suggests that we do not get mired in such feelings. 

I believe in the story told to me by Rabbi Jeff Summit of Tufts Hillel, of the Rabbi who taught, ‘What can we learn from the telephone?  That what is said here is heard there.’

What we do here will echo there – wherever we could not be, wherever we wished we could offer a hand, wherever we fear to go because we legitimately feel we are putting our own lives in danger – the danger is the idleness or inertia, that we stand, planted in place, until the moment when the evil finds us

Good News from Israel - Changes coming at the Western Wall

Emor 5773/2013

Good News from Israel

Amidst a new wave of terrible devastation, Boston, Bangladesh, Texas, a vicious shooting in Manchester, Illinois, there was some good news out of Israel, some news that marks a hopeful change in the thinking about religious pluralism at the Kotel, the Western Wall, one of the most revered sites for the Jewish people. 

Jerusalem judge Moshe Sobell upheld an earlier ruling that cleared the Women of the Wall from being held on charges of creating a public disturbance by their once a monthly prayer gatherings.  He also ruled that these women, many of whom wear a tallit, who read Torah and daven as a minyan, do not violate ‘local custom’, which was a legal basis for the arrest of 5 women earlier this month.  He based his decision on a 1994 ruling from High Court Judge Shlomo Levin who argued that ‘local custom’ is not limited to traditional Orthodox practice.  Levin argued that custom can change and that the operating principle should be a ‘tolerant approach to the opinions and customs of others.’

The Jerusalem police have agreed to follow the court’s ruling and refrain from arresting the Women of the Wall who for 25 years have been holding services one each Rosh Chodesh, each celebration of the new month.  Over this time, they have been verbally and physically abused at the Wall, detained, shackled, arrested.

Rosh Chodesh is among the days that we celebrate life, hope, and the renewal of time and our people.  Parshat Emor places most of the major Jewish holidays in the foreground, as God asks us not only to know what these days are and when they are, but to actively proclaim them and act on them, to bring the holiness of these days off the pages of the scroll or book and into lived experience.

The writer R. Yakov Zvi Mecklenburg, Haktav ve’Hakabalah, explains that Shabbat, the first and most basic ‘festival’ in the Jewish calendar, a day that sets the example for all other holy days, is a day of rest, pausing, and ceasing from work.  Also, Shabbat suggests a day for opening the mind, a day when we give our physical selves a rest and open up the potential for studying and exploring holy words and ideas.

I believe that Women of the Wall are most interested in being able to do just this, to create meaningful holy experiences, to encourage women by facilitating a sacred space where they may fully express their beliefs in a supportive environment.  For the women in our community, on your next Israel trip, try and schedule your trip so that you can attend a service on Rosh Chodesh with this trail-blazing group.  Their courage gives us strength.  Their vision has motivated the Israeli government to instruct Natan Sharansky to implement a plan that will establish mixed prayer space at the lower part of the wall, Robinson’s Arch, that is regularly open to all who wish to daven this way, rather than the current arrangement that requires reservations.  The new area will be equal in size to the upper plaza and both will be accessible through one entrance.  We should all applaud this significant step and share our appreciation with Israel’s leaders and with the Women of the Wall.

And so amidst more chaos we find a new and hopeful order, amidst political instability in the Middle East we find voices raised up in song a prayer with renewed strength, and we see Eretz Yisrael, the State of Israel, growing, changing, evolving, striving to find a way to live up to the high expectation that Israel, that our people, can be a light that shines out to all nations and peoples of the world.